"Tell me, After all this time… All our talks." The bearded man shifted in his cell, bedsprings groaning under his weight. "Do you still want to kill me?"
The boy clenched his eyes shut, halting as the man behind him continued to goad him from his cage.
"I- I dunno, man."
He was almost certain he could hear the man's facial muscles stretch into a wide smile as he trudged up the stairs of the dark basement without looking back.
"Boom!" Negan Smith roared. "You pull your pud that slow, fuckwit?! Game point!" The large man stood defiantly, table tennis paddle gripped tightly in his hand.
He thrusted the paddle forward, a sly grin spreading across his face. "If I had a wrist that weak, I'd need three pictures of your mom to blow my load." He paused, eyeing his opponents. "Now which one of you little pricks is next?"
The three kids gawked at Negan, mouths agape and eyes as wide as saucers. For the past few weeks, the gym teacher had been running a ping pong club in his driveway, something for the less athletic kids. Toughen 'em up, maybe get them out of their shells a little. Turns out, cursing them out and hurling insults at them wasn't exactly the best approach. Deep down, Negan knew this as soon as he threw his first expletive, but hey, it wouldn't hurt to try it out, right? Wrong.
Clancy Peters stood in the small garage, legs spread apart awkwardly and hands shoved deep into his hoodie pocket. He was a little on the chubby side, reaching five foot six with a weight that seemed to forever fluctuate around the two hundred pound mark on his cheap scale at home. With freckled cheeks, big brown eyes, and a curly black mop of hair on his head, the boy wasn't necessarily the most popular freshman at Deep Run High School. Maybe he could lose a few pounds, get a girlfriend. Then he'd finally fit in. He hoped.
To his left was Scott Lin, Clancy's best friend. The boy was a lanky, awkwardly proportioned, shameless nerd. Flowing dark hair crept its way down the boy's neck, the mane being covered by a red baseball cap. The same red baseball cap that Scott wore basically every hour of every day of every year. Clancy met him in sixth grade thanks to a shared love of video games, Pokémon cards, and comic books; somehow those interests had found a way to persist in their friendship nearly five years later.
Finally, there was Josh Angelos, who just so happened to be holding his table tennis paddle tight enough for his knuckles to turn white. He was more of Scott's friend than Clancy's, but the freckled boy was familiar enough with him to strike up a conversation here and there and occasionally hang out with him after school as well. He was also the most bland-looking person Clancy had ever seen. Josh was medium height, medium build, brown-haired, brown-eyed, wore monochromatic clothing, and did fifty other things that made him blend into the background of a room immediately. The only thing that Scott would say was cool about him was his last name, which starkly contrasted the bland "Josh" that preceded it.
Coach Negan eyed the boys, his smile only widening. "So? You gonna just make me wait here until your balls drop or what?"
Without skipping a beat, Josh dropped the paddle. He turned away from his friends and coach and started running down the driveway past Negan's motorcycle. The boy nearly tripped as he bounded off the curb and landed in the street, gaining his composure and high-tailing it down the block and away from the Smith household.
The game of ping pong had been uncharacteristically intense. For the nearly five minutes that it went on for, neither Negan nor Josh said a single word, leaving Scott and Clancy to look on in bewilderment as the two titans clashed in the small Virginian town. Each slap of the rackets shook the driveway, and every bounce of the small plastic ball on the surface of the table sent shockwaves that could be felt from three suburbs away.
The game was perfectly matched. Negan would swing and hit the ball with an incomprehensible force that would be directly followed up by Josh. This cycle kept going until a car honked its horn as it drove by the group, causing Josh to flinch. This gave Negan the opening that he needed. With a powerful slap of the paddle, the ping pong ball went careening past the boys and bounced into the street, only followed by the howl of their gym teacher's victory.
Now Josh was gone, and the remaining three people in the driveway were left confused by his departure. They all shared a long gaze down the street as the boy sprinted away from the former warzone. It was Scott that broke the silence.
"Sorry Coach Negan, Josh has always been kind of a pussy. I'll try to calm him down."
Without a second to spare, the lanky teen began to chase Josh, leaving only Negan and Clancy left in the driveway. There was another uncomfortable silence. It was long and grating and made Clancy cringe in his hoodie and wish that he could be anywhere else in the world. Then Coach Negan spoke.
"What are you waiting for, kid? Christmas morning? Party's over, get outta here."
"I- Uh, I thought we had an hour left."
"Yeah, well your little friends over there don't seem to be coming back." The coach pointed behind Clancy.
'Yeah, I- I can see that." The boy stared at the empty spaces where his friends once stood.
Negan put down the paddle, walking past Clancy and stepping off the curb. "I mean, I'm not gonna blame you if you wanna stay." He said, back turned towards his student as he recovered the ping pong ball. "I mean, else are you gonna do if you go home? The four knuckle shuffle? Play some video games?"
Clancy wrinkled his nose at the coach's accusations. Partially because of the crudeness of claims, but also because he was totally right. Other than those two things, the boy didn't have the most packed daily itinerary. Add some school to the mix and minimal time spent doing homework, and he was free for most of his week. He should go out more. See a movie with Scott and Josh, maybe. Ping pong club was fun, but only when Coach Negan wasn't talking about fucking their moms or scaring them enough to make them run away from his house.
"I guess you're right." He sighed. "So… wanna keep playing ping pong?"
"Hell no." Negan threw the small white ball back at Clancy, who instinctively lifted a right arm and caught it. "Nice catch, kid."
"Thanks." He said plainly, looking down at the ball in his hand with a twinge of bewilderment in his expression.
"Basketball."
"What?"
"We're gonna play basketball." He walked past the boy and into his backyard. "You coming?" Negan asked from over his shoulder, digging through the small shed for a basketball. "Tell you the truth, I thought I was gonna lose that ping pong match. Gotta blow off some steam by shitting on you, kid."
"Yeah, sure."
Negan looked surprised. Maybe the kid was finally turning over a new leaf, growing some kind of backbone and all that shit.
"You are probably gonna win, though."
And there it was. The debilitating self-doubt that took the wind right out of the boy's sails and pissed Negan off more than it should have. It was almost a constant occurrence in gym class, especially with Clancy's type. The weak, insecure kids that sat in their own little cliques at lunch and spent their time wallowing in self pity. Maybe Negan could do something about it, maybe he couldn't. Couldn't hurt to try, right?
Well, the last time he asked himself that question, it resulted in his students running away in fear, so maybe he didn't have the best judgement. Ah what the hell, it can't hurt to try again, could it?
"Alright then. We're not leaving until you score five baskets in a row."
"Really?"
"Really."
Negan knew that the kid could leave whenever he wanted, but something made him think that he'd stay... Maybe it was because he was too scared to leave. The boy kept missing his shots, and eventually the game devolved into conversation with a half-assed throw taken here and there.
"So, how's school going, kiddo."
Negan didn't care. It was just small talk, and he hated small talk.
He'd first met Clancy at the start of his freshman year; a small, chubby recluse that looked like he couldn't hurt a fly. The kid had definitely grown since then, and Negan had done more than enough to try and get him out of his shell. Was it working? A little bit. More than he expected, actually. Besides Clancy's occasional moments of self-doubt, the kid had some decent one-liners and was actually able to bring Negan to laughter at some points during their meetings at "Ping-Pong Club." What a shitty fucking name.
"Alright. Mrs. Miller is being kind of a pain in the ass, but I can't complain about anything else."
"Mrs. Miller…" Negan seemed to hang on the name, holding the basketball tightly in his grip. "Tall chick? Glasses? Big ass?"
"Coach Negan, she's like… seventy."
The teacher let out a quick chuckle before bending his knees, lining up a shot. "Guess I got the wrong person then." He shook his head, looking at the boy with a smirk. "Or did I?"
"Gross."
"What about… ah hell, what's his name?" Negan slapped his head. "That Faluci guy."
"Mr. Fallone?"
"Yeah, close enough."
"Not at all actually." Clancy smiled. "What about him?"
"I heard you guys blowing a gasket about his test a few days ago."
"You heard us? We were in the locker room." He threw the ball towards the hoop, slamming it into the backboard and falling to the concrete with an airy thud.
"Yeah, well when ten screaming assholes interrupt me trying to play solitaire on the computer in my office, I tend to listen."
"Oh."
A silence fell over the pair.
"So why do you think they ran away?" Negan threw the ball over Clancy's head, the net catching it flawlessly.
Clancy wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead and grabbed the ball as it bounced to the ground, tossing it back to his gym coach. He had shed the hoodie, donning a band tee that seemed to catch Negan's attention.
"I don't know Coach Negan, maybe it was when you said you were gonna jerk off to pictures of his mom or called him a fuckwit." He paused, scraping his shoe on the asphalt of Negan's backyard. "Or maybe both."
The teacher sucked his teeth. "I thought you guys thought that was funny." He lined up a shot again. "I hear the shit that you guys say when I walk by at lunch, none of that was any worse than a day at your table." Negan scoffed.
"Yeah, well they probably didn't expect their gym teacher to say it." He tried to block Negan's shot, missing terribly. "Especially Josh of all people."
"Yeah, well I'm doing it for your sake, y'know that right, Clance. I mean, you three aren't necessarily the biggest dicks swinging around in Deep Run, y'know that, right?"
"Obviously, but if you're trying to toughen us up, maybe this isn't the best-" Negan threw the basketball at Clancy's chest, knocking the wind out of him.
"I'm doing this because I know how you feel." He raised his voice. "I was like you when I was your age, Clancy. Angry, lonely, wishing that you can get a piece of the pussy pie." The gym teacher narrowed his eyes at the boy with a smirk, only to be met with a grimace.
"Point is-" Negan said, leaning back. "I'm trying to relate to you here, kid. Maybe help you lose a few, well y'know..." The gym teacher pointed to his stomach, eyes emphasizing the point he was trying to make.
Clancy looked back at Negan with a raised eyebrow. Maybe he was onto something. The boy had been beating himself up about his appearance for the better half of middle school and all of high school, so having a person in charge of getting him on track involving his weight loss could only be a good thing, right?
The freckled boy threw the ball towards the basket, circling the rim and falling languidly through the net. "Yeah? How?"
Negan smiled, leaning down and picking up the ball. This was his job, right? Stop kids from getting too fat and all that shit. "First of all kid, your diet is the most important thing." He spoke in an authoritative tone as he tossed the ball to Clancy. "What do you eat? At home, I mean."
"Uh… mostly frozen stuff." He chewed his lip. "And when dad's home from work or awake enough to cook it's uh— more frozen stuff usually. At school though, it's usually whatever they have for lunch that day, y'know. Dad gives me, like, five bucks a day so… yeah" Clancy clenched his fist in discomfort, feeling the popping in his knuckles as he kept his balled fists deep in his pockets. He felt his face grow hot as he submitted to Negan's interrogation.
"Frozen stuff?! C'mon, kid, you don't have mom whip up any home-cooked meals for Sunday—"
"Car crash."
"What?"
"Car crash, Coach Negan. Two years ago."
Suddenly the smooth grin on the gym teacher's face melted away. His eyes softened and he opened his mouth to say something before Clancy dropped the ball.
Fuck. How could he be so fucking stupid and forget about the fucking car crash? They had a whole faculty meeting about the "kid whose mom died and had to move from the big city to some shithole town in Virginia." Negan forgot about it almost immediately, but when he realized that kid was Clancy, he found himself going easier on the boy. Guess he fucked that up too.
"Uh, I think I'm gonna go." He said, awkwardly bending down to pick up the ball he'd just dropped. Clancy walked past his coach, shoving the ball into his arms, picking up his hoodie from the driveway. He balled it up in his arms and walked past Lucille's car as it pulled into the driveway.
Clancy didn't have to strain himself to hear Negan's self-reflective "fuck" from behind him.
He walked for around fifteen minutes until Lucille's car pulled up beside him.
"Look…" His gym teacher called from the lowering window, scratching the pack of his head. "I'm… not good with kids, alright. Lucille always said I wasn't and I never believed her until now, I guess." Negan said with an empty laugh, eyes focused on the road. "I'm sorry about earlier, okay? I- I forgot about it, and… I'm sorry I brought it up."
Clancy took in the scene, looking through the window at his gym teacher with an uneasy feeling in his stomach.
"Kid, we've already established that I'm a piece of shit asshole, but I'm not a big enough piece of shit asshole to let you walk all the way home." A smirk crept onto the gym teacher's face. "Even if it would do some help."
"Dick." Clancy muttered as he opened the passenger door and lowered himself into the car.
"That's the spirit. C'mon, start giving me directions."
The car remained silent as Clancy leaned on the passenger-side window, taking in the green fields as they rushed by the car, shoulders shuddering at every pot hole Negan passed in the road. He could feel the tension constricting him, wrapping around his neck and squeezing the life out of him until Negan broke through, his loud voice cracking through the thickness of it.
"Shit, kid, I'm not asking you to forgive me, alright. Maybe I have been a little too much during the past few meetings with-"
"Coach Negan, drop it. It's fine." Alright, now he needed to say something. Anything that would get him out of another bout of awkward silence. "Uh, so what about that weight loss thing you were talking about?" Negan seemed to light up at this, something that Clancy didn't necessarily like.
"Well, the thing is, Clance, you could be slaying some major fandango out there but, well… you're fat." The boy next to him furrowed his brow and frowned, making Negan crack a smile. "Hey, and I mean, some chicks are into that. Maybe someone you like is into you and you don't even fucking know it yet."
"Well, there is this one girl." Clancy said, loosening his posture and letting himself sink slightly deeper into the seat.
"Yeah?"
"She's pretty cute, and uh… when I, uh, lose some weight I was planning— I'm gonna ask her out. Not to a movie, though, because, like, I wouldn't even get to talk to her if we went there." He scratched his chin. "Maybe something else would happen, though, y'know."
Negan let out a bellow of laughter, slamming his fist on the steering wheel, accidentally honking the horn. "I like your style, kid. I was doing that shit when I was even younger than you, Clance. Take a girl to the movies, wait for a scary scene, lean in, then boom!" He roared. "Never seemed to fail."
The boy looked at his coach. "Really?"
"Yeah, well, then it did, but that's besides the point, right now." Negan swerved the car to the right, jostling Clancy around in the black leather seat of Lucille's car. "Look, you got a goal set up already. Take that girl out to a movie date. Now, how are you gonna get there?"
"Uh… probably work out."
"Not just probably work out. Definitely motherfucking work out. Oh, and cut down on the frozen food and after school snacking shit too, get some fresh veggies in you and shit, you feel me?"
"Well, yeah, but Coach Negan, dad's barely scraping by right now as is, and I don't know if-"
The coach leaned over in his seat, groaning in pain as he awkwardly fished through his pocket in the driver's seat. "Don't get old, kid." He choked out in laughter as he placed a twenty dollar bill in Clancy's hand.
"Grilled chicken breast and broccoli, easiest way to drop some weight, trust me." Negan placed both hands on the wheel again, paying attention to the road as he took another turn towards Clancy's house. "Now, twenty bucks isn't gonna carry you anywhere, and I'm not planning on giving you free handouts until you lose some lard." The coach said with a smirk. "Got some yard work that's gotta be done. Do that, and get paid. Get paid, get more food. Capiche?"
Clancy looked at Negan with his mouth agape. "Uh, yeah, yeah, capiche." He squeezed the bill in his hand and shoved it into his pocket. "T— thanks Coach Negan. I mean it."
"Don't mention it, Clance." Negan took another turn and pulled in front of a small house that Clancy pointed to. "You just gotta tell me how that movie date goes in a few weeks."
"A few weeks?"
"Hell yeah "a few weeks", welcome to Coach Negan's boot camp, baby." The man roared as he clapped Clancy's back, who laughed nervously in response. "Track field after school tomorrow. Be there. Bring a change of clothes too." Negan looked at his shirt. "You listen to Half Moon?"
Clancy raised an eyebrow before looking down. The visage of a bearded man stared back at him, half of his face covered in shadow. "Nah, this is my dad's shirt. He any good?"
"I dunno, my wife loves him though. Kinda making me a little jealous, Clance." The gym teacher said with a laugh as the boy opened the car door, smirk plastered on his face.
Clancy nodded to his teacher before stepping out onto the curb, his shoes feeling like cinder blocks that weighed him down and made every pace toward his house feel excruciatingly slow. What the hell was he himself getting into?
